Mad Money: Top Marques Monaco Is the World’s Richest, Most Insane Auto Show

Howard Walker

Apr 22, 2015

Howard Walker

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2015 Top Marques Monaco Supercar Show

Famed British playwright Somerset Maugham summed up Monaco perfectly when he labeled it “a sunny place for shady people.” Every April for the past dozen years, this petite, tax-free principality on the Mediterranean has been beckoning shady locals, oligarchs, and tax avoiders to offload some of their ill-gotten loot by welcoming them to Top Marques Monaco, dubbed “the world’s most-exclusive car show.” This year’s orgy of extravagance featured more than 40 mega-priced supercars, including the debut of the world’s first one-megawatt electric hypercar. Add to that such oddballs as a real-deal flying car from Slovakia, a Russian-modded Tesla with humming bumpers, and a Hungarian Ferrari being built by a former Kuwaiti and that’s powered by a 734-hp supercharged V-8 developed in Texas. Read on for more highlights from the world's wildest car show.

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Howard Walker

Toroidion 1MW

It may look like some cheesy ’80s home-build kit car, but Finland’s Toroidion 1MW packs some serious wattage. Like 1,000,000 watts. It is the first one-megawatt electric supercar, as indicated by the 1MW moniker. While it’s very much a concept, there’s plenty of cool technology lurking beneath that lump-of-Play-Doh exterior.

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Toroidion 1MW

The fast-swap, high-capacity battery system is designed to dramatically extend the car’s 300-mile range—or allow it to compete at Le Mans running the entire 24 hours solely on electric power.

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Toroidion 1MW

Toroidion founder and CEO Pasi Pannanen told us a production 1MW was at least three years away, although he projects 0-to-125-mph sprinting in five seconds, a top speed approaching 300 mph and a $1-million price tag. We doubt Elon will be losing much sleep.

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Aeromobil 3.0

The last flying car we got the hots for was that high-winged AMC Matador driven/flown by the dastardly Francisco Sacaramanga in the 1974 James Bond romp The Man with the Golden Gun. A far more serious piece of aeronautical kit is the Aeromobil 3.0 being developed in Slovakia and making its auto-show debut in Monaco.

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Aeromobil 3.0

This “flying roadster,” as it’s called, is said to have already logged seven hours of airborne testing as well as 40 on the road. Its maker says that, at the flick of a switch, it can morph from car to plane in just 2.5 minutes and once in the air has a claimed top speed of 125 mph and a range of 400 miles. On the road, the 19-foot-long two-seater can top 100 mph, allegedly.

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Aeromobil 3.0

While the company says a production Aeromobil should be on sale by 2018—at a cool $1 million a pop—you have to ask the question: What’s the point?

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Larte Tesla Model S

The one thing you can say about a Tesla Model S is that it’s super-quiet. Maybe too darned quiet for headphones-wearing pedestrians or helmeted cyclists. So when Russian tuner Larte Design decided to customize the Model S, it also decided to add a customizable soundtrack. Subwoofers integrated into the new front and rear bumpers will thump out an owner’s bass-rich tracks of choice.

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Larte Tesla Model S

Larte Design’s new head of U.S. operations Alexey Yanovskiy showed off the system featuring his current favorite noisemaker: Daft Punk’s techno theme from the Tron Legacy flick. Oh, and the body kit the company has developed for the Model S is pretty cool too, and is now available stateside.

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Mazzanti Evantra

OK, so name an Italian supercar maker, other than Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Pagani. If you said Mazzanti, give yourself a gold star.

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Mazzanti Evantra

This teeny Tuscan carrozzeria currently builds a sexy-looking mid-engined super-ish car called the Evantra, featuring wacky, rear-hinged doors that dip into the roof structure. In Monaco it was showing off its latest iteration, featuring a honking 7.0-liter, 750-horse naturally aspirated V-8 based on GM's LS7 engine.

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Mazzanti Evantra

Company president Luca Mazzanti boasts of a 0-to-60 sprint in 3.0 seconds and a 200-mph top speed. But with a sticker price up around the $800,000 mark, it’s no wonder he only builds cars to order.

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Nimrod Avanti Rosso

In certain Middle Eastern enclaves and Monaco subdivisions, Lamborghini Aventadors are a dime a dozen, or whatever the currency of the day might be. To this well-heeled crowd, the Lambo’s crazy stock bodywork somehow isn’t quite crazy enough. Which is where Bader Alroudhan comes in. His Nimrod Performance empire in Hungary takes an Aventador and pretty much completely re-bodies it using carbon fiber.

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Nimrod Avanti Rosso

In the case of his wild Avanti Rossi, he lengthens the nose by around eight inches, adds Countach-style intakes over the rear wheels and bolts a huge, Boeing-grade wing on the back.

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Nimrod Avanti Rosso

The base 6.5-liter V-12 gets bumped up to 740 horsepower, although 1500 horsepower is a common request. His “base” Avanti Rosso kicks off at around $700,000.

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Nimrod Katyusha

Back in the ’80s, designer Vittorio Strosek was the king of wide-bodied Porsches, adding huge and crude wheelarch blisters to everything from lowly 944s to beefy 928s. Since then, not much else. But when Bader Alroudhan decided to “Nimrod-ize” Ferrari’s 458 Italia, he called on Strosek to sculpt the new, all-carbon body.

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Nimrod Katyusha

He did a swell job, adding a touch of Ferrari Enzo to the nose and creating more visual interest to the back end. That said, we’re hoping he wasn’t responsible for those gross lipstick-red accents everywhere. Power for this Nimrod Katyusha (Katyusha is a popular gal’s name in Russia) comes courtesy of Hennessey Performance in Houston, whose supercharger package bumps up the power to 738 horses. All yours for around $400,000.

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Radical RXC Turbo

We're not sure how the ground-scraping front spoiler of Britain’s insane, racetrack-ready Radical RXC rocket ship would cope with Monaco’s velocity-quelling speed bumps. Badly, we presume. Nevertheless, this acid-yellow projectile on Radical’s Top Marques stand was attracting plenty of interest from the Monegasque locals.

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Radical RXC Turbo

While the RXC has been around for a while, new is the twin-turbo version of Ford’s 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 mounted behind the pilot and cranking out a healthy 454 horses. The car’s stated 0-to-60 time of 2.6 seconds and 185-mph top speed is partly down to the thing weighing, Radical says, a mere 2094 pounds. In the olde country, it stickers for £129,000—the equivalent of $190,000.

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TopCar Stinger GTR

Not to be confused with the gorgeous, Singer-reimagined classic Porsche 911s, the Russian Stinger 911 is an altogether more flashy beast. What, you don’t want your cabin decorated with strips of genuine 24-carat gold? This is what gets Monaco excited: a cabin that looks like the inside of a Kay Jewelers store.

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TopCar Stinger GTR

TopCar, which builds the car, will modify any 991-generation Turbo and Turbo S, changing out pretty much every body part with panels made from vacuum-formed carbon-fiber and Kevlar.

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Evanta Barchetta

For the past 20 years, Britain’s Evanta Motor Company has been doing quite well building exact, million-dollar replicas of Aston Martin’s super-rare ’50s GT Zagato coupe. Now they’ve decided to shake things up by building their own retro roadster they’re calling the Evanta Barcetta.

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Evanta Barchetta

With its Kardashian curves, chopped-down windshield, and gorgeous quilted leather interior, you can picture it blasting along the soaring Grand Corniche highway behind Monaco.

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Evanta Barchetta

And blast it will, courtesy of a GM-sourced 450-hp 6.2-liter V-8. Yours for around 190 grand. Interested? Reports are that the second example off the line will be heading to the States.

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LaRiviera Jaguar

You’ve probably never heard of him, but Noel Edmonds is something of a British TV legend. He’s also a car nut, having owned a Ford GT40 in the days when they were cheap, been a presenter on Top Gear, even entered his own team at Le Mans. Now he’s started his own car company.

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LaRiviera Jaguar

Edmonds's Monaco-based Classic Riviera plans to build just five Jaguar SS100–inspired LaRiviera two-seaters a year using mechanical bits from 25-year-old Jag XJ sedans, including the 4.2-liter straight-six.

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LaRiviera Jaguar

The artisans at Suffolk Sportcars back in the U.K. will build the cars to Edmonds’s specs at around £175,000 (or $260,000) apiece. He could be onto something—he sold two on the first day of the Top Marques show.

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Zenvo ST1 Part Deux

Mention the name Zenvo and instead of car folks gushing about its 1104-hp V-8, its Danish heritage, and super-rarity—only 15 cars will be built—most remember it as the car that flambéed itself on Top Gear. But Zenvo has moved on, and at Monaco it was showing off the Mark II version of the carbon-bodied ST1. The big news: a new seven-speed sequential transmission from CIMA in Italy, said to deliver shifts in less than 35 milliseconds. Pricing starts at the equivalent of $950,000 (fire extinguishers included).

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Hamann Porsche Macan

German tuner Hamann brought along its new Gulf Oil–liveried Porsche Macan S Diesel to showcase to the Monaco crowd, although most were probably thinking what a cool ride it would make for their kids’ nanny. Beneath the pastel blue hue, Hamann has developed a slick body kit and engine upgrades for Porsche’s mid-size sport-ute.